Book · 2004 · Fiction
Gulliver's Travels
- mentions
- 10
- people
- 6
- podcasts
- 5
- episodes
- 6
- critical mentions
- 0
Fiction is intentionally ambivalent, by which I mean Swift in Gulliver's Travels does not want to express his own opinions.
What they say about it
- Discusses Swift and his work“ambivalence of Gulliver’s Travels”2
The best things said about it
In Gulliver's Travels, he got really serious and preachy and the whole last part of the book is just him preaching at you about how the world should be different.
He can make those arguments either with the kind of directness and polemicism that we associate with his pamphlets, or with the incredible ambivalence of Gulliver's Travels.
The first edition of Gulliver's Travels there's a frontist piece and a picture of Gulliver it's typically interpreted as Gulliver looking a lot like Swift.
Tyler Cowen Conversations with Tyler · Sep 2023 Where and when it comes up
Mentions per year
1
2
1
1
5
How it comes up
Most mentions, by podcast
6 people who brought it up
Why people recommend it
Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift is a classic satirical novel that follows Lemuel Gulliver on extraordinary voyages to strange and fantastical lands. Scott Dikkers discussed on How I Write that the novel's final section becomes overly serious and preachy, illustrating how satire can falter when it loses its subtlety. Henry Oliver spoke extensively about the work on Conversations with Tyler, analyzing its deep intentional ambivalence and noting that Adam Smith counted it among his favorite literary influences, a discussion joined by Tyler Cowen. Josh Clark mentioned the book on Stuff You Should Know while explaining that early miniature golf courses were once called Lilliputian golf after the tiny inhabitants of Lilliput. Additionally, Colson Whitehead revealed on The Book Review that he utilized the novel as structural research for his own writing, and Tyler Cowen noted on another episode of Conversations with Tyler that it served as a core text for discussion with guest Jerusalem Demsas.
Every mention
Henry Oliver OLIVER: He loves Gulliver’s Travels. He loves Samuel Richardson. 3
Discussed
“OLIVER: He loves Gulliver’s Travels. He loves Samuel Richardson.”
Discussed
“OLIVER: He can make those arguments either with the kind of directness and polemicism that we associate with his pamphlets, or with the incredible ambivalence of Gulliver’s Travels...”
Discussed
“OLIVER: Well, one thing is that fiction is intentionally ambivalent, by which I mean Swift in Gulliver’s Travels does not want to express his own opinions.”
Tyler Cowen COWEN: You’ve read Gulliver’s Travels many times. You’ve studied it. 3
Discussed
“COWEN: You’ve read Gulliver’s Travels many times. You’ve studied it.”
Discussed
“so let's start with Ursula Le Guin the dispossessed the other books will be Jonathan Swift Gulliver's Travels and Richard V Reeves of boys and men”
Discussed
“the first edition of Gulliver's Travels there's a frontist piece and a picture of Gulliver it's typically interpreted as Gulliver looking a lot like Swift”
Colson Whitehead and then finally I use the analogy to Gold travels and they're like oh I get it even though I'm not like a… 1
Discussed
“and then finally I use the analogy to Gold travels and they're like oh I get it even though I'm not like a big Gus travels fan and I I read it as research for the book”
Josh Clark Up to that point a lot of people had called it Lilliputian golf Sure. after the the little people in Gulliv… 1
Discussed
“Up to that point a lot of people had called it Lilliputian golf Sure. after the the little people in Gulliver's Travels.”
Richard Dreyfuss The first name for people like you was flat doodles and they were the ones that made an independent decisio… 1
Discussed
“The first name for people like you was flat doodles and they were the ones that made an independent decision to open the flaps of the eyes and ears of the the people who were running the world which were uh it looked like elephants and it was in daniel defoe's gulliver's travels”
Scott Dikkers However, in Gulliver's Travels, he got really serious and preachy and the whole last part of the book is ju… 1
Discussed
“However, in Gulliver's Travels, he got really serious and preachy and the whole last part of the book is just him preaching at you about how the world should be different.”
Also mentioned in the same episodes
Other mentions (4: passing, ad reads, own books)
Passing
“So the the uh Jonathan Swift, who's famous for authoring Gulliver's Travels. Okay, what one of Gulliver's Travels is 1726, I think it was.”
Passing
“The dean of nearby St. Patrick's Cathedral was Jonathan Swift, the extremely well- reggarded author of Guliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal.”
Passing
“While the books themselves are whimsical Victorian era fiction similar to the style of Gulliver's Travels, they've exploded in popularity due to the eerie parallels.”
Passing
“and it's exactly the kinds of things you see in works of fiction like Gulliver's Travels you know or 1984 and the way that religion and politics kind of intersect and become bastardized”